IN THE 1880s Melbourne was a study in contrasts. It was the fastest growing city in the British Empire and one of the most prosperous. It was also the smelliest, with an appalling infant mortality rate and up to 3 per cent of the rest of the population dying of typhoid every year.

Melbourne has a superb public transport infrastructure - for 1935.

The economists and the germ theory deniers said that this was the way things were, and the best thing to do was to do nothing. People in the wealthy suburbs south of the Yarra weren't worried by the smells since they could pay to have their sewage carted to the river and dumped in it. The poor would have to put up with the smell, which served them right for not being rich.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson

The rich weren't troubled by the smells, but they were victims of typhoid. They caught it from their servants and food suppliers: germs didn't respect suburban boundaries.

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A royal commission reported in 1888 that the only way to control typhoid was to arrange for the sanitary removal and treatment of sewage; and every household had to be connected to the system before any of them were safe. A Board of Works was established, funded from a property rate and began work in 1891 in spite of a fierce economic crisis; and by the start of the 20th century the smells, and the deaths from typhoid, were a fading memory.

Melbourne in 2012 faces another crisis, not of contagious disease but looming economic stagnation. Once the transport system serving a city reaches its limits developers no longer want to build and building owners no longer want to maintain: eventually the city decays into a few buildings in a sea of bombsite car parks, like downtown Dallas or Los Angeles.

Los Angeles and Dallas are spending huge sums building up their public transit systems, not because of some sentimental leftie belief in the virtues of public transport, but to bolster inner-city property values and to get developers interested in the bombsites.

Melbourne has a superb public transport infrastructure - for 1935. The affluent have crossed the Yarra and now colonise almost all of the zone-one public transport area, delighting in the benefits of the public transport system built by our ancestors. They enjoy frequent tram services and fast and comfortable trains. They own cars and use them for shopping and visiting friends and relatives; but they don't rely on them to get to the city for work or play.

Extending Prahran-class public transport to all the built-up areas of greater Melbourne would cost a considerable amount; but generate far more in increased property values, as well as keeping Melbourne's CBD vibrant and prosperous. Our debt-shy state government won't do anything significant to save the city, whichever party is in power: both have prolonged the appointment of public servants who believe public transport is for losers and the best that public transport users should expect is an occasional bus on a crowded freeway.

We must go back to the future and establish a public authority, funded by property rates, with a mandate to build a genuine world-class public transport system. With such a system in place, no more than 5 per cent of Melbourne households would be more than 800 metres from a fixed-rail transport service. A rate of 0.1¢ in the unimproved capital value dollar would raise about $1.7 billion per year, while half of all households would pay no more than $11 a week. This is less than it currently costs outer suburban households to register and insure their third car.

Over a 20-year period such a public transport authority would raise and spend about $35 billion on Melbourne's fixed-rail infrastructure. This is sufficient to deliver the Footscray to Caulfield tunnel, the airport and Doncaster rail lines, and then build an additional 100 kilometres of twin-track heavy rail, add an express track on 100 kilometres of existing rail routes, build 1200 kilometres of light rail and tram routes, and eliminate 10 level crossings.

This would be a fantastic bargain for suburban battlers: over 20 years their transport rate would cost no more than $12,000 while their property value rose by $80,000. The attraction might seem a little less in Toorak or South Yarra with their excellent tram and train services built by preceding generations; but their property values would be protected from the consequences of the collapse of CBD values if the city were to be choked by inadequate transport.

The government has attempted to remove the politics from public transport by setting up Public Transport Victoria; but the people that it has appointed to the board have been involved in a series of disasters, not just myki, that have left Melbourne travellers paying too much for not enough. They are the people who scrapped 90 trams just as patronage started to rise; who closed two tram depots and sold the land, then sent their minister to tell the public that a new depot would cost half a billion dollars; who signed dodgy contracts with the first batch of franchisees giving Melbourne 20 bouncing trains and another 20 trains that wouldn't stop; who sent out their ministers to make public fools of themselves by saying new trams would cost $20 million each and a three-kilometre extension of the Epping line would cost $300 million.

The government has hinted at the creation of a public transport development authority funded by a metropolitan improvement rate. This will be a great idea, but only if visionary people like Sir Harold Clapp and Sir Robert Risson are in charge. The current crop of public servants can't be trusted with the future of Melbourne.

102 comments

A very thoughtful (and literally constructive) piece, John Legge. Yes, an update of Melbourne's public transport system is sorely overdue.

Once, we used to fund much of our suburban development out of municipal rates which actually helped keep a lid on escalating land values, but as that idea became to be considered passe, we tried to keep our council rates low by hitting developers with up-front charges. Unlike rates, that only added to the skyrocketing prices of a block of land.

Capturing a part of the uplift in land values that an updated public transport system would give to Melburnians indeed has much to recommend it.

Commenter

Bryan Kavanagh

Location

Glen Waverley

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 5:31AM

Couldn't agree more. I especially agree that incompetant people remain in positions of authority with the PTC. Pity this idea wont happen under any government.

Commenter

Jarrod

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 9:20AM

John Legge for Premier please!

Commenter

Radzb

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 9:26AM

Well said

Commenter

malbunite

Location

Moonee Ponds

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 10:17AM

We need to rethink the way/s we raise revenue because the "user pays" system has failed miserably. When people are confronted with the full cost of development they find alternatives and as a consequence the whole community suffers. We need a government that will do its job to build, maintain and manage public assetts instead of selling them off for short term gain. There is nothing wrong with debt to build assetts, it is much cheaper than paying for the profits of private operators like we do when we use the Toll roads. We also need to accept that some public assetts will always make a loss but paying for the loss is cheaper than covering the loss and forking out a profit as well.

Commenter

JHP

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 10:27AM

It won't happen under any govt, as the developers see the Lib and Labor as a coalition party in their back pocket. Classic example of 1% benfiting and 99% getting shafted. The Occupy movement weren't wrong.

Commenter

DaveD

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 10:27AM

Hear Hear - also agree that the current crop of public servants cant be trusted and are incapable of making these changes so too the pollies and their advisors.

Ted "no can do" Baillieu also needs to be heavily scrutinised on the west city development and his ideas, such as who owns the property out west?

Commenter

Dino

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 10:35AM

I agree with John Legges' comments about public transport.

We, as a society, cannot continue to fund such expensive road infrastructure for such a wasteful transport policy that allows single occupant cars to dominate our roadways.We need an orbital rail link in an arc right around Melbourne about 10-15 kms from the city centre and an upgrade of existing railway lines.

Overwhelmingly Victorians want better public transport infrastructure ahead of more toll roads and freeways but the governments' are doing the opposite. Why is this ? Because the road lobby have the politicians in their pockets. Thats why. The quality of our politicians is pathetic ! No leadership !Road lobby groups want to get their snouts in the trough and some of the action in the $10 billion east-west toll road tunnel.Traffic congestion in Melbourne is costing the economy $4 billion annually in lost production. These losses will multiply if more major road expansion such as a $10 billion east-west toll road tunnel were built.

Successive state governments have downgraded rail services over the last 50 years and have gone on a spending spree wasting billions of dollars on unnecessary freeways and toll roads around Melbourne. Much of the freight has been transferred from the railways to road and this has led to an increase in dangerous heavy vehicles damaging our roads and increased road fatalities.

All future road funding allocations should be transferred to the public transport budget to allow a major expansion of the railway network throughout Victoria. This is the only way to solve Melbourne's major congestion problems. Melbourne has not had a significant suburban railway expansion since 1927 when the Glen Waverley railway line was constructed yet many railway closures have taken place in the last 50 years around Melbourne.

Commenter

Rail Now

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 10:38AM

I have heard this before, and I am sure will again. Every city in Australia need to address public transport and inter-city links.'leftie belief in the virtues of public transport' is also a silly comment

Commenter

MT

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

November 21, 2012, 10:52AM

I disagree that the inner city dwellers are the winners. Those at the end of lines that need to commute to the city are winners. The reason is simple - they get the seats. Jump on the Frankie line at an outer station and SIT and watch the 3 people who get on at Armadale stand for their journey. It keeps me amused that the inner burbs commuters pay horrendous house prices but don't get the best public transport. A win for the "boogans"